Skip to main content
Practical manual for Income Tax 2023.

7. Financial expenses

Delimitation of deductible or non-deductible financial expenses:

This includes all expenses arising from the use of external financial resources to finance the company's activities or its assets. Among others, the following are considered as such:

  • Expenses for discounting effects and financing of the company's operating credits.

  • Surcharges for deferral of payment of debts corresponding to the activity.

  • Interest corresponding to deferrals and fractioning of tax debts, provided that they are directly related to the activity and correspond to the fiscal year.

  • Tax late payment interest arising from settlements made in verification procedures and those accrued due to the suspension of the execution of the contested administrative act (suspension interest).

    Supreme Court Judgment No. 1091/2023, of June 24 (Contentious Chamber), issued in cassation appeal No. 515/2022 ( ROJ : STS 3511/2023) has established as an interpretative criterion that the deductibility of late payment interest in the IS , is extrapolable to the IRPF , in the event that the taxpayer carries out an economic activity.

On the contrary, are not considered deductible financial expenses :

  • Those that entail a higher cost of acquiring heritage items.

  • Those arising from the use of own capital.

Limitation on the deductibility of net financial expenses

The limit on the deductibility of net financial expenses will be the greatest of the following amounts:

  1. 30 percent of the operating profit for the year. 

    Operating profit will be determined from the operating result of the profit and loss account for the year determined in accordance with the Commercial Code and other accounting regulations, eliminating the amortization of fixed assets, the allocation of subsidies for non-financial fixed assets and others, the impairment and the result from the sale of fixed assets, concepts that are included in the profit and loss account model. This result is added to the financial income from participations in equity instruments, provided that they correspond to dividends or participations in profits of entities in which either the percentage of participation, direct or indirect, is at least 5 percent, except when said participations have been acquired with debts whose financial expenses are not deductible. See in this regard article 16 of the LIS .

  2. 1 million euros when the previous limit exceeds one million euros

Up to this amount, that is, up to 1 million euros, net financial expenses will, in any case, be deductible.

However, when the duration of the activity is less than a year, the deductible amount will in any case be the result of multiplying one million euros by the proportion between the duration of the activity in the tax period and the year.

See the Resolution of July 16, 2012, of the General Directorate of Taxes, in relation to the limitation on the deductibility of financial expenses in the Corporate Tax ( BOE of July 17).